It would be hard to judge just how many Americans died as a result of Prohibition, that vile offspring of the Progressive Movement beginning in the 19th century.
No, I'm not talking about gang warfare and turf battles, those only took a few thousand lives. I'm talking about the Southern farmers who, deprived of their huge grape growing revenues, turned to tobacco. Thus inabling millions of people to begin the nicotine habit. And the deprivation of life saving natural nutrients found in native grapes, and almost no place else.
Until Prohibition, Vineyards in the south were the largest in America, with North Carolina leading the nation in wine production. Not only that, most of these wines were made from native muscadine grapes, which it turns out contain many times more phytonutrients that prevent heart disease and other ailments than vinifera wine grapes imported from europe.
http://www.ncmuscadine.org/Pages/History-Page.htm
Fortunately, the muscadine is staging a remarkabole comeback. Intensive research at NC State University and the University of Arkansas is yielding muscadines that have a higher sugar content for winemaking and with thin, edible skins instead of the thick skins of wild muscadines.
Amazing what you can learn on the internet.
http://www.muscadine.com/winery.htm
The moral of this story is, when anyone proposes a law "for our own good", revile them, and then ignore them and make sure your lawmakers ignore them too.